CivicPlus Clients Win Top Digital Cities Honors

The results are in for the 2016 Digital Cities awards competition. Among this year’s winners are three CivicPlus local government clients: Durham, North Carolina, Roanoke, Virginia, and Tamarac, Florida. Each local government has earned a first-place nod in its population size category. This year’s top ten have been recognized for producing local government websites that focus on transparency and security, and offer a functional infrastructure.

Winners were selected by a panel of experts at The Center for Digital Government, a leading resource on information technology in state and local government. The Digital Cities competition aims to recognize the most strategic, efficient, and innovative guardians of public-sector technology in the nation.

According to CivicPlus Marketing Director Mark Friesen, CivicPlus is pleased to see the vision and effort of its clients recognized with such a prestigious national accolade.

“All three of our recognized local government clients share a commitment to creating a digital experience for its citizens that engages and inspires,” said Friesen. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with these three innovative communities to help them to leverage our CivicEngage content management system to accomplish their goals. We are extremely pleased to see that the Center for Digital Government has recognized the positive results of their efforts.”

Each of the three CivicPlus client communities was recognized by the judging committee for its digital innovation and commitment to its citizens. For inspiration on how to leverage your own local government website to engage and connect with your community, read on to learn the best practices that earned Durham, Roanoke, and Tamarac top honors.

Tamarac has invested significantly in fiber infrastructure to help meet its citizens’ digital access needs. Looking to the future, Tamarac will focus on achieving higher levels of mobility for both its workforce and its citizens. A significant part of that goal will be accomplished by making more of its community services available through the city’s CivicEngage website. Currently, Tamarac’s website conveniently enables citizens to accomplish such tasks as applying to open job positions, reporting concerns, and making online payments.

The focus of the administrative leadership in Roanoke is to create an environment of learning, succession and dedication. The city has invested in both infrastructure and innovative solutions to help it bring engaging services to its community. Roanoke has seen great success in leveraging social media platforms to connect with citizens and demonstrate accessibility and transparency. Its CivicEngage website conveniently integrates with its social media accounts, helping to amplify its engagement strategy.

The strategic goal of Durham is to serve its community as an “innovative and high performing organization.” To achieve its goals, it has implemented an innovative enterprise-wide IT Governance model to provide effective information technology portfolio management. In addition, one of its most successful initiatives was the creation of its “City Hall on the Go” program. Using a Wi-Fi-enabled truck, City Hall on the Go brings city services to neighborhoods and city events. A cornerstone in its digital communication strategy is its CivicEngage website, which recently received a Best of the Web award for excellence.

If you’re ready to take your own community’s digital communication strategy to the next level, start with an assessment of your current website with a free, third party website performance evaluation. The free report evaluates how your website performs in such essential categories as mobility, speed, readability and broken-links, giving you a foundational assessment as you plan your own strategic enhancements.

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Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Rochester, and a Master of Arts degree in Advertising from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She has over ten years of experience in communications with a focus on writing in the digital marketing space.